About 20 USF St. Petersburg students traveled to Tallahassee last Tuesday, lobbying the state legislature to reinvest in higher education and appropriate funding for a building to house the College of Business.
Meetings with many state senators and representatives netted positive responses, with four resulting in verbal commitments to a College of Business building.
However, not everyone was ready to support a new building for USFSP. In a meeting with student body president Mark Lombardi-Nelson, Senate President Don Gaetz made it clear there would be some obstacles to overcome.
“I guarantee you that is absolutely not going to happen. Poof! The money is gone,” Gaetz said, opening his hand to pantomime a cheap magic trick. He was referring to Public Education Community Outlay funds, which are a tax on telephones and other utilities. The funds, which are used by schools for construction projects, have been dwindling for years in direct correlation to declining landline use.
The students’ lobbying efforts were part of USF Day, a joint effort with the Tampa and Sarasota campuses. Altogether, roughly 75 students made the trip to address their representatives in person about their school’s needs.
The journey began with a 5:30 a.m. departure, as business students loaded a rented bus with newspapers, laptops and pillows in hand. By noon, tables were set in the main lobby of the capitol building complete with USFSP-themed gifts and literature.
College of Business Dean Maling Ebrahimpour, Interim Regional Chancellor Bill Hogarth, Regional Vice Chancellor of External Affairs Helen Levine, and Rocky the Bull joined the students, who split into groups to cover more ground. For about 20 minutes, students were given the opportunity to speak directly to the senators and representatives in their offices.
The day’s final meeting with Senate President Gaetz was a higher-ups only affair, consisting of USF President Judy Genshaft, the student body presidents of the Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campuses, football coach Willie Taggart, softball coach Ken Erickson and Rocky the Bull.
USF Tampa’s student body president, Brian Goff, covered four of the five initiatives on everyone’s agenda, asking Gaetz to support reinvesting in higher education — particularly the $300 million that was recently slashed from USF’s funding. He also proposed Gaetz invest in the USF Heart Institute, in-state tuition for veterans, and $118 million in USF’s online education program.
When Goff finished, Lombardi-Nelson spoke up.
“I wouldn’t be doing my job as USFSP’s student body president if I didn’t tell you about our need for a College of Business building,” he said.
But before he could elaborate, Gaetz made his response and his opinion clear.
Despite the lack of support for a new building from Gaetz, the day was viewed as a success by student participants.
“It went well. We planted the seed that there is a need for a USFSP College of Business building. That idea will eventually grow into a building,” said Andrew Defraites, Student Government’s director of marketing.
Jon Ellington, former student body president and current business graduate student shared that enthusiasm.
“We had positive responses, several commitments and constructive feedback on how to move forward,” Ellington said. “Some people gave us news we didn’t want to hear and that’s OK. It will help us sharpen our saw and be more committed to how we bring projects through.”
This was far from Ellington’s first rodeo in Tallahassee. He made the trip to the capitol building at least a half dozen times when lobbying for the University Student Center.
As select students from the College of Business prepare thank you letters, SG will begin planning its own trip to lobby for a new building.
While Gaetz and others may stand in their way, members of SG who were on the trip have embraced the challenge, even adopting a special greeting — a fist bump followed by a quick opening of the hand, as both parties say “poof.” The greeting serves as a motivational reminder of the challenges they plan to work on in their future lobbying efforts.
“We’re going to follow up with local representatives and get ready to go back,” Lombardi-Nelson said. “We need to make them believe.”
Lazar Anderson is a correspondent a the Crow’s Nest. He can be reached at Lazar@mail.usf.edu
